What Would Paris Look Like Under 1 Meter of Water?

Ah, Paris at dawn! Straggling notes of late-night jazz echoing off of alley walls, the smell of fresh-baked bread wafting from boulangeries, the gentle lapping of waves as the tide rolls in....

Wait – does that last thing really happen? To believe this dreamy film from the Parisian architectural-imaging studio ArtefactoryLab, it certainly does, at precisely “5:46 a.m.” (the film's title). The seas-soused brain behind the visualization, Olivier Campagne, created the project back in 2010 after wondering what his city would look like submerged under 1 meter of water. Although his camera caught a couple of joggers and runners while he was shooting, Campagne chose to erase them digitally, saying he was inspired by the empty, computer-generated cityscapes of artist Nicolas Moulin.